


Gravity

by HapaxLegomenon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Getting Together, M/M, Mythology References, Post-season 7, Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 10:59:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16135847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HapaxLegomenon/pseuds/HapaxLegomenon
Summary: Gravity: The force of attraction between two bodies.





	Gravity

There’s a list of names on the curved wall, and every one of them feels like an accusation. A failure. It cuts like a sword to the core of him and Shiro has to close his eyes and breathe deep just to stand up straight under the weight of so many lost souls. They finally won a decisive battle, yes, but that doesn’t make up for the fights they lost. The fights that Earth never had a chance to win because Voltron was galaxies away and Shiro was incorporeal and ineffective in the soul of the Black Lion. 

Keith doesn’t say anything when he enters the memorial hall, but Shiro knows he’s there, has long since memorized the cadence of his footfalls. The footsteps approach and then stop, and Shiro feels Keith at his side. 

“It’s not on you,” Keith says like he can read Shiro’s mind. “Or us.”

Maybe not. The Galra would have come anyway, even if Shiro hadn’t died in space, even if he hadn’t gone to Kerberos in the first place. They’d known the Blue Lion was on Earth. They would have come. Logically, Shiro knows that there is nothing more anybody could have done, but still -- there are a lot of names on the memorial. Someone should answer for that.

“Shouldn’t you be resting?” he says instead of responding.

“Shouldn’t you?” Keith shoots back, and Shiro’s lips quirk into a smile despite himself. Keith explains anyway: “I got restless. I hate hospitals.”

That makes sense. Keith's always been the restless type. It's one of the things that drew Shiro to him in the first place, that spark of a wild soul that burns so bright in Keith. There aren't many people like that.

Shiro reaches out and traces the carved letters with his fingertips. The crux of the “A” catches the edge of a callous, and the curve of the “D” is smooth.

“You still love him,” Keith says, in a way that doesn't feel like a question, but Shiro knows it is.

“I do,” he says, because it's true. There's a part of him that will always be Adam; the steady, driven part, the part that excelled within the rigid framework of the Garrison and their friendly rivalry-turned-love. That was family, once. But families can break apart, and Shiro found a new family in a leonine guardian of the universe. “Not in the same way,” Shiro adds, the “M” abrupt and terminal under his fingers. 

He feels Keith's eyes on him, sharp and warm in the faint coolness of the memorial hall. “Could you love someone else that way?” he asks. His voice is soft, filled with a quiet assurance that Shiro always knew would belong there someday.

Shiro's hand falls away from the memorial. “Of course,” he says, and he turns to meet Keith's gaze.

Keith's cheeks crinkle in the hint of a smile, and he ducks his chin just slightly. Despite the bandages around his head and arms and the paleness of his face, his eyes are bright with mischief. Something lights in Shiro's chest like a spark.

“I have an idea,” Keith says. “You in?”

“Always,” Shiro answers, without hesitation. 

 

***

 

“When you said ‘joyride,’” Shiro whispers, as they creep through the base, “I thought you meant the Black Lion.”

Keith scoffs. “I don't want the attention. And I haven't gotten to drive a hoverbike in ages.”

“We're war heroes, I'm pretty sure they would just give us a bike. We don't have to sneak around,” Shiro points out, but he's grinning widely. Sneaking around is part of the fun, after all. 

Keith gives him a dry look, because as much as they like to think Shiro was a good influence on him… well. They also both know who initiated their clandestine, antiestablisment rips through the desert.

Back then, when Shiro was a model student and Keith was a troubled kid with more energy than he knew what to do with, there was a real element of danger to sneaking through the Garrison base to the garage. Between Shiro’s starry ambitions and Keith’s disciplinary record, neither one of them could afford to get caught. Now, there’s no real urgency -- who would try to discipline the head of Voltron and the captain of Atlas? But still, the familiar path spikes an adrenaline rush in Shiro, and he revels in the uncomplicated sense of rebellion.

After years of war with the Galra empire, hotwiring the hoverbike and escaping the garage is hilariously easy, and Shiro laughs from the back of the bike as Keith speeds off towards the setting sun.

“Hold on,” Keith yells back, his voice catching in the wind and the engine humming straight towards a cliff. Shiro wraps his left arm around Keith’s waist, the fingers splayed against his stomach. Keith is always warm, radiating heat, and the hard muscles of his abdomen flex and jump against Shiro’s palm as Keith steers the bike off the edge. Keith whoops, and Shiro presses a delighted laugh into the back of his neck. There’s a lurch in his stomach that might be gravity and it might be love, and Shiro thinks it amounts to the same thing, anyway.  An inexorable force of attraction, always bringing him back to Earth. Always bringing him back to Keith.

They ride. Shiro pushes forward against Keith’s back, and Keith leans into him, and the sun sets over the desert. 

Finally, Keith pulls the hoverbike to a crawl, and then they stop, up high on a ridge of sandstone and far enough away from the new Garrison that it’s barely more than a smear of light on the horizon. Keith climbs over the windshield to sprawl on the front of the bike, leaning back and looking up at the sky. Shiro claims the open space beside him. Nighttime in the desert is cool, despite the still air, but the bike is warm and so is Keith, and Shiro doesn’t feel the chill at all.

Keith rests his head against Shiro’s shoulder. “I know it’s silly,” he murmurs, “but I missed the stars.” 

Breath catching, Shiro turns his gaze to the sky.

Somehow, with everything that had happened since their return to Earth… he’d forgotten to look up.

Shiro spent most of his life dreaming of those stars, sneaking onto the balcony at night to squint through the city light pollution and winnow out the brightest among them, devouring book after book until the constellations felt like friends. Emotion wells up in his throat; it’s a reunion, just as genuine as any other he’s had on Earth. The stars blur, and he wipes his hand over the back of his eyes and points, nudging Keith’s elbow.

Keith follows his gesture and smiles. “Leo,” he says, with much more confidence than he had years ago, when Shiro first started teaching him the constellations. He tilts his head up to grin at Shiro, sharing in the little joke. The lion in space. Always Keith’s favourite.

Then Keith turns to the west, but Shiro doesn’t see where he points, because Keith grabs his hand, and their fingers fit together perfectly, like puzzle pieces, calloused and warm and Shiro loses himself in the touch, for just a second or two, until the dizzy moment of overwhelming affection passes and he can look, and smile.

“27 Tauri. In the Taurus constellation,” he says, glancing sideways for Keith’s reaction. He gets what he’s looking for when Keith rolls his eyes in fond exasperation.

“Atlas,” Keith corrects, and squeezes Shiro’s hand. “You knew what I meant.” He pauses, fingers flexing, before he says, “Looking at the stars used to make me feel so small. Now…” he trails off.

Shiro hums, and tilts his head so that his jaw presses against Keith’s temple. He understands. Shiro loves the stars, but now, for every one he can see, he sees a planet of beings counting on Voltron to protect them. He sees galaxies in desperate rebellion against a splintered Galra empire, fighting tooth and claw and believing that Voltron has disappeared for good. He sees a universe of people that need him to fight. It’s almost too much. It presses down on him and like the mythical Atlas, Shiro doesn’t know how much longer he can shoulder the weight of the universe.

“Now,” Keith says, “I feel strong.” 

Oh. Shiro exhales a long breath. 

Independence was always an essential part of Shiro’s nature. When he was a teenager with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove, he worked hard and the Garrison rewarded him. It was an act of rebellion against the insidious disease that rotted his body from the inside out; a defense against loss when first his instructors and then Adam abandoned him. And then when the Galra came, and Shiro had to fight the universe for every breath, his stubborn will was all that kept him alive. He’s used to fighting alone. 

Except he doesn’t have to.

Looking at the stars and dreaming of exploring between them used to be the escape Shiro needed. Now, he realizes, with the hoverbike engine warming his back and Keith’s hand twined with his, what he needs is to feel grounded. Gravity.

Or love.

Shiro shifts, pulling his hand from Keith’s to push himself up on his elbows. His palm feels cold with the loss, and he curls it into a fist. Keith glances at him, then settles back against the windshield and returns his attention to the stars. In the blue desert moonlight, Keith’s dark eyes shine, and the curve of his jaw is cut in purple shadow.

“I forgot how beautiful it was out here,” Keith murmurs. 

“It is,” Shiro agrees. He isn’t looking at the sky.

It’s easy, somehow, to roll onto his hip and discover that his fingertips are just the right size for the space behind Keith’s jaw. Keith’s head tilts, following Shiro, and his eyes are like the midnight desert sky, deep and dark and shining with stars. And when their lips meet, there’s no explosion, no fireworks. Just a sense of peace, like there’s nowhere else in the universe they need to be. Here, on the hood of a stolen hoverbike in the middle of nowhere on Earth, they come together. It’s simple physics, really. Shiro isn’t Atlas, and he can’t fight gravity forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Talk fandom to me on Twitter: [@paxlegomenon](https://twitter.com/paxlegomenon)


End file.
